Letters, Week of March 22, 2012

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To The Editor:
Re “Quinn wins school and more; Saves Reiss in Rudin deal” (news article, March 15):

It is a great victory and was a long-fought battle to obtain 75 Morton St. as a public school. Thanks to Assemblymember Deborah Glick, whose idea it first was, to Community Board 2, especially Brad Hoylman and Keen Berger, along with parent activists Irene Kaufman and Ann Kjelberg, for continuing the battle for so many years, and to Speaker Quinn, for finally getting it done.Leonie Haimson

Editorial was tremendous!

To The Editor:
Re “Stop Chelsea Market plan” (editorial, March 8):

This editorial deserves a Pulitzer Prize. It comprehensively and clearly explains an issue of great importance — not just for those of us who live in Chelsea — but for the city’s business community. Most important, it points to a good solution and names those who can make it happen.
Hilda Regier

Spot-on on Jamestown plan

To The Editor:
Re “Stop Chelsea Market plan” (editorial, March 8):

Absolutely, spot-on, excellent! I hope both Amanda Burden and Speaker Quinn are reading this. They have a chance here to stand up, change course and do something truly outstanding and right for Chelsea and the city that would long be remembered.Nick Fritsch

It’s time to make a stand

To The Editor:
Re “Cabrini home will close by summer, its operators say” (news article, March 15):

The article states, “The building was recently purchased by the Magnum Realty Group after the property’s previous, undisclosed owner decided last year to sell at a price that the rehab center’s current operator — the Cabrini Eldercare Consortium — could not meet.”

Undisclosed owner, indeed. None more greedy, lifeless, cruel a person could possibly exist. This so-called human being hides in a cowardly anonymity typically employed by old Nazi soldiers guilty of war crimes. But this is the kind of company sociopath real estate developers like Ben Shaoul keep.

Throwing the Greatest Generation out onto the streets is a crime. How I wish Tom Hanks would hold a press conference demanding the members of the “Band of Brothers” be treated like the national heroes they are. How I wish George Clooney would say, “You’re throwing Rosie the Riveter out on the street over my dead body.”

These senior citizens no doubt remember the 1937 Great Flint Michigan Sit Down Strike. I wish the residents would do just that: Stay put, refuse to leave. What do they have to lose?

No one wants to see 90-year-old grandmothers and grandfathers being forcibly removed by police. What a media circus that would be.

Peter Cafiero states that I “incorrectly attributed a mixed bag of assertions to Dr. Bharucha” in my Feb. 23 talking point about The Cooper Union (“Save The Cooper Union without losing its identity”).

But my talking point included a reference to my YouTube video “The New Colossus,” which highlights — multiple times on screen as a framing device — the letter to the Cooper Union community, which I cited, that Dr. Bharucha wrote explaining his “reinvention strategy.”

Cafiero — or Bharucha — may regret that Dr. Bharucha ever wrote the letter, but it is Bharucha who has chosen to title the task force Web site “Cooper Union Reinvention,” and who has violated the announced hiring freeze for positions essential to the “reinvention strategy.”

Is this “subversive,” part of a “grand conspiracy”? No, I wrote that Bharucha’s “reinvention strategy” jibes exactly with the new president’s educational policy speeches prior to coming to New York City. Who exactly is Bharucha conspiring with? Himself? My only assertion is that the board of trustees are violating their duty of obedience to the mission of the college by hiring a new president who would use The Cooper Union as a living experiment for his educational policies in violation of multiple aspects of Cooper’s mission and identity. That’s not a subversive conspiracy; it is a mistake that is easily corrected.

Or, to use the words of my satirical YouTube video, the hiring was a “colossal blunder.”Barry DroginDrogin is publisher, The Alumni Pioneer, and a Cooper Union alumnus, Class of ’83 (electrical engineering)

Squatters didn’t cause this

To The Editor:
Re “Reflections of an old freak in the new East Village” (talking point, by Bill Weinberg, March 8):

Culture never dies, never is erased, is just transformed and forced to relocate into more suitable terrain to live to fight another day. To suggest — even ironically — that “squatters were the vanguard” of gentrification is ludicrous, given that those who were truly drawn to it were certainly not the bankers and real estate profiteers. Sure, people gravitate to life, fun and truth as sure as a bee to honey. But who can blame them?

The sad part is that more folks didn’t heed the call — the fatalists, the sorry politicians, stuffy leftists and all those who thought it was impossible. We did what we had to do, what was called for. Suggesting we brought on the yuppies is like saying we shouldn’t cure an illness ’cause we’re gonna die anyway!

It’s still true: Gentrification is genocide! Homelessness under Bloomberg has increased, and at this very moment there are way more vacant spaces than there are homeless!

Culture never dies. Need a home? Take one! Squat the world!Frank Morales

Yippie Pie Man is in peril

To The Editor:
Re “Feeling drained” (Scoopy’s Notebook, March 15):

Aron is suffering from morbid obesity which is going to eventually lead to his demise. He got out of the fat farm at 300 pounds, then started overeating again and gained 50 pounds. When he got out he was asked if he was going to start gaining weight again and he answered that he had gone through too much exercise and dieting to do that. Then I watched him get off a First Ave. bus from my window and realized it took him far too long to walk the half a block to where I live, even at his pace. He had stopped into the corner pizzeria.

Aron is a food junkie and needs ibogaine. Or maybe acid would help him with this self-destructive behavior. Acid could take him out of his body so he could see himself from afar and where he is heading.A.J. Weberman

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